


A Creator's Heart

by Star_Going_Supernova



Series: A Creator's Heart verse [1]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bendy writes to Henry pretending to be Joey, Gen, Human Sacrifice, Joey isn't in this at all, Mentioned Past Deaths, Pen Pals, Rituals, but he's not, yet he still managed to be a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-02 10:35:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12724962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: pen pal:a person with whom one becomes friendly by exchanging letters, especially someone whom one has never metOr; in a very different world, what if Bendy sent the invitation to Henry, and instead of showing up at the studio, Henry wrote back?





	1. The Necessity of Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> In this AU, none of the toons are part human (for example: the ‘Alice’ we know is simply Alice here, no Susie involved— this goes the same for Bendy, the Projectionist, and the Prophet), and they don’t hate each other. 
> 
> Credit to http://upperstories.tumblr.com for Buddy! Thank you for such a great little character! I hadn’t planned on giving him as important part as I did, but I’m happy with it. (note: this is _not_ a HatIM AU)

**Dear Henry,**

**It seems like a lifetime since we worked on cartoons together. Thirty years really slips away, doesn’t it.**

**If you’re back in town, come visit the old workshop. There’s something I need to show you.**

**Your best pal,**

**Joey Drew**

• • • • •

_Joey,_

_You’ve got a lot of nerve to act like everything that happened between us didn’t. I hope you know that if you were standing in front of me now, I’d give you a real shiner._

_That being said, I planned to stop by and see you after I got your letter. Regardless of what you did, we were best friends, and best friends give each other second chances. Some part of me has always regretted not doing so before._

_Something came up last minute, however, and I don’t know when (if at all) I’ll be able to make it out there._

_But now I find myself curious and nostalgic; how are you, after so long?_

_~ Henry_

• • • • •

Bendy stared down at the letter in his mismatched hands. Henry Ross was hardly the first former employee of Joey Drew Studios he’d sent the invitation to, but he _was_ the first one to respond like this. Other than a few that hadn’t been heard from in any way, everyone else had simply showed up, as requested. 

This, though. This was different. 

It also posed a rather large problem: Henry was the last person they needed for the ritual, and now they didn’t even know if he would come at all. With thirty years behind the man since he’d last been around, they knew he hardly had that much time left in this world. If he died before returning, or just flat out forgot… that’d be it. 

The studio’s occupants would be stuck in painful corruption for the rest of their lives— a number that, as far as they knew, stretched somewhere towards forever. 

Bendy looked up at Alice and Boris.

“So what do we do?” Alice asked. Boris tilted his head, silently questioning Bendy as well.

It hurt Bendy so much to see his best pals like this: Alice corrupted and halfway something else, with the missing bits and broken bits and all the other wrong bits; and Boris, with his partially shattered ribs poking out of his gaping chest, with more of his insides missing than what he had left— he couldn’t even speak.  
  
Of course, Bendy himself was in sorry shape as well. Proportions wrong, ink constantly dripping down his face, hands and feet mismatched as they were… 

Like Dr. Frankenstein had fled from his monstrous creation, Joey had cut-’n-run the moment Bendy had clawed his way out of the Ink Machine, damaged beyond repair. He hadn’t been the first toon Joey had ever made, but apparently he’d been the first of a string of particularly horrifying, patched up, off-model, half-finished creatures.

It was only through their haphazard attempts at keeping up with stolen newspapers that they’d found out Joey had died only nine months following their creation. 

After years of suffering, Boris had accidentally discovered the ritual book that Joey had used to bring them and the rest of the unfortunate inhabitants of the studio to life. Hidden within the musty pages was their salvation: a ritual that would stabilize their bodies and minds, and give them true life beyond the illusion of it that Joey created. 

It involved human sacrifices. _A lot_ of human sacrifices. And all of them had something to do with the employees that once worked at the studio. 

All they needed now was the heart of one of their Creators. With Joey dead and gone, it had to be Henry. 

“We make sure he doesn’t forget,” Bendy finally decided. “I’ll keep sending him letters until he comes. Maybe he’ll even make a greater effort to make it out here if he thinks ‘Joey’ is being a real friend again.”

Boris gave him a thumbs-up. Alice nodded, shoving her wonky halo back up when it started to slip down. 

• • • • •

**Dear Henry,**

**I must admit I’ve had better days, however I find myself bolstered by your response. Much has changed since I last saw you, and I do hope you’ll be able to visit at your earliest opportunity. There are some things best done in person, in my opinion.**

**Now that I have told you how I am, you must do the same, my friend. How have the past thirty years treated you?**

**If it wouldn’t be a bother, would you be willing to keep up a correspondence until we may meet again?**

**Your friend,**

**Joey Drew**

• • • • •

_Joey,_

_I have to admit it: I was rather surprised that you bothered to reply. I had thought perhaps you wouldn’t care quite so much about reconnecting that you’d be willing to make an ongoing effort._

_I’m glad to be proven wrong._

_Time has been an equally cruel and kind mistress to me. Nightmares have plagued me since my service ended, though these days, they are not nearly as bad as they once were. But I have been happy. How could I feel any different when I spent so much of my life doing what I love?_

_Ah, it brings a smile to my face to remember those days._

_Knowing you, you won’t want to tell me what you wanted to show me. But, Joey, what are you still doing at the studio? It’s been closed for years._

_~ Henry_  

• • • • •

“What do I tell him?” Bendy cried, waving the letter around in his more human-esque hand. His distress caused a flood of ink to pour down his face, and he swiped his larger, gloved hand across his eyes to clear his vision. It only half worked. 

The group of corrupted toons in front of him had varying reactions. 

Boris and the others who lacked a voice shrugged. The Projectionist screeched through the speaker on its chest. Edgar clacked his head-teeth, and then gave Bendy a soulful look as though he’d said something wise. Alice tapped her lips in thought, one of her fingers getting caught in the inky strands that spanned the exposed portions of her cheeks. The Prophet started rambling about how Bendy should say that Joey was studying the dark arts in an attempt to better understand the way life and death moved in a circle, feeding each other, but no one paid any attention to him. Underlying all this were the soft groans of various Searchers and an Amalgamate or two. 

Just before Bendy lost his patience and screamed, he felt a little tug on his leg. At his feet stood the studio’s smallest inhabitant, Buddy. 

Despite being tinier, quieter, and meeker than all the others, Buddy was the first of Joey’s experiments. Before there were Searchers and Amalgamates, before the more human looking Projectionist and Prophet, before any of the stylized toons, Buddy had been created. 

He didn’t talk much— though he could, in a slightly squeaky voice— and he spent most of his time out of sight, whether in the ventilation shafts or in rooms the rest of them hardly knew existed. Once, and only once, he’d told Bendy that he wasn’t alone in his head, though he refused to say anything else on the subject. 

Buddy waited patiently until Bendy had sat down on the floor and leaned over to compensate for the toon’s diminutive size before cupping his little mitten-hands around his mouth and whispering in Bendy’s technically nonexistent ear.

The edges of Bendy’s downturned mouth gradually slid back up, stretching into his natural grin. It was such a simple solution, and even better?— it was true.

• • • • •

**Dear Henry,**

**I must admit you are correct, as a surprise is only so good as the surprise-er’s ability to keep it secret. It’s a project of a personal nature, involving our old cartoon characters. What better place to bring this vision to fruition, I had thought to myself at the beginning of this venture, than the studio where it all started in the first place?**

**And so here I am. Surrounded by memories that, I confess, I am rather excited to share with you.**

**If you don’t mind me asking, in your first letter, you mentioned that something came up quite suddenly. What was it?**

**It is good to be talking to you again, my friend. You are making an old man happy with these communications, sparse as they are.**

**Awaiting your reply,**

**Joey Drew**

• • • • •

_Joey,_

_I’m sorry it took so long for me to respond. The time was spent deliberating the answer to your question. I’ve finally decided to tell you._

_I’m alone now. My younger brother passed the day I’d planned to leave for the studio to visit you._

_These past weeks have been spent making arrangements, sorting through his belongings, and visiting with his children and grandchildren. They’ve decided to return to France, where his daughter-in-law was born, to be with the rest of her family._

_I’ll miss them, though I suppose it won’t be as badly as I’ll miss my brother. I feel cracked open and empty, and I don’t quite have the motivation yet to make the journey to the studio._

_These letters with you have been helping me keep my head above the water, so to speak. I mentioned in my last one that the nightmares haven’t been as bad as they once were; they probably would’ve made their return by now, if I slept enough for them to trap me in my own mind._

_It’s as though my age has finally caught up to me. I’m very tired, Joey, and I don’t quite know what to do about it._

_Thank you,_

_Henry_

• • • • •

Bendy repeatedly thumped his head against the table as Alice held the letter between herself and Boris across the table from him, finally just resting against the wood, letting a puddle of ink form.

“Henry’s gonna accidentally kill himself before he even _thinks_ about coming here!” he whined. “And then where will we be?”

He heard the rustle of Alice setting the paper down. “He said you’re really helping, though. Keep doing whatever you’re doing, Bendy, because it seems to be working. He definitely sounds like he wants to come, he just needs to heal a bit first.”

“I don’t know the first thing about comforting someone about the death of a family member!”

Boris tapped the back of Bendy’s head, prompting him to raise it and wipe his eyes clean.  
  
Making his eyes assume the cartoon Xs of death, Boris let his head drop limply to the side. 

“That’s not funny,” Bendy said, voice shaking slightly. 

Immediately, Boris straightened back up, wincing slightly. With the gaping hole in his chest, it looked too real. 

Bendy sighed. “But, I do get your point. What would I do if I lost you, or Alice, or any of the others. Okay, that shouldn’t be so hard.”

Boris gave him a blatantly disappointed look before rapping his knuckles against the table. 

“He’s right,” Alice said, giggling. “You’ve just jinxed yourself.”

Groaning, Bendy dropped his head with a splat back into the puddle he’d made. 

• • • • •

**My dear Henry,**

**By all means, take whatever time you need to heal. But please, don’t let your health fall to the wayside. If it means anything at all, I care about your wellbeing.**

**Thirty years and many miles may separate us, but you aren’t alone.**

**The loss of my own family members hit me hard. What worked for me in those times may not for you, but my advice to you is this: do something you enjoy. You may not find it within yourself to love it as normal, but take that time to remember your brother in all the best ways. Don’t lose the good moments to the bad.**

• • • • •

Bendy paused in his writing. He stared at that last line, and tried to remember the last time he’d sat down and thought of the good things in his life, rather than the bad. 

He couldn’t. 

Setting down his pen, Bendy stood from his chair. He’d finish the letter tomorrow. 

Until then, he wandered the empty corridors, dragging his fingers along the walls and leaving thin trails of ink behind. 

Good times… 

Like when they’d found an abandoned rubber playground ball on the side of the road, many years ago. They’d played countless games with that simple toy, even the most reserved of them venturing into the group. It took almost four years of near-constant use for the ball to begin deflating until it couldn’t be used anymore. 

Like the stories Bendy used to tell to the others, making shapes on the wall with his aura to go with his word-weaving. It’d been a while since everyone gathered in one of the rooms for a night together like that. 

Like hide-n-seek, perhaps a bit overdone after so long, but fun nevertheless. The studio was large enough with all the lower levels that games could last for hours, depending on the rules they used. 

Like the time Buddy’d accidentally gotten into some coffee that an employee had left behind. What a day that had been— no one had ever seen the tiny toon so energetic, not to mention fast. 

Like when they’d gather in the music department and sing, one song right after another, each as bittersweetly familiar as the last. Enough of them could manage a number of instruments that they were able to get an entire band going some days. 

Sure, the twenty years or so that they’d been alone in the studio hadn’t been all fun-and-games, but it hadn’t been all terrible either. Would Bendy want to spend the rest of his life this way? No, of course not. 

But when had everything become so focused on the ritual sacrifices that they— toons, for Pete’s sake!— had forgotten how to have fun?

• • • • •

**I have wasted too much time already on the bad moments.**

**I hope you don’t make that same mistake.**

**Wishing you well,**

**Joey Drew**  

• • • • •

_Joey,_

_Thank you. It’s working. The day before I mailed this, I slept all the way through the night for the first time in over a month. I physically feel so much better._

_If I hadn’t already promised to come out there as soon as I can, this alone would’ve made me agree. In the span of a few sentences, you’ve returned me to life._

• • • • •

When Alice walked into their kitchen— originally the staff lounge, but with added bits and pieces— Bendy heard her pause at the threshold. He could only imagine the picture he made, sitting on the worn wooden bench with his head in his hands, Henry’s letter open beneath him.

“Bendy? Are you all right?” 

He sighed and pushed the letter around to the opposite side of the table for her to read. 

Silence; then, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But you know what the worst of it is?”

Alice sat down, frowning. “You mean there’s something even worse than knowing we’re going to sacrifice a man that’s finally feeling better because of us after the death of his brother?”

“But that’s just it. It’s not because of us. He thinks he’s writing to Joey Drew, his old best friend.” Bendy flipped the paper back and stared down at it, at those five simple words that he hadn’t ever expected to hear from somebody.

_You’ve returned me to life._

The words and the gratefulness weren’t even meant for him. 

“Y’know… this is the first time I’ve felt like a monster for what we’ve been doing. And he hasn’t even gotten here yet.” 

Alice nodded slowly. Her gaze, like his, remained glued to the page. “Are you,” she took a deep breath, “are you going to back out? Tell him not to come?”

Bendy thought about it. About how keeping Henry away would sentence a life of perpetual incompleteness to everyone in the studio. Pain, and corruption, and deformity. 

Henry was old. He’d lived his life— had even said it’d been a happy one— and his sacrifice would save so many from further suffering. Besides, Henry himself was hurting, and there wasn’t a ritual to help him, so wouldn’t a quick, merciful death be a blessing?

Bendy had never needed to come up with excuses before.

“I can’t,” he told Alice. He could practically taste the desperation on his tongue. “I can’t do that to all of them. Henry has to… he has to die.”

Alice closed her eyes and bowed her head, ignoring her halo as it slipped and got caught on one of her devil horns. “Yeah,” she whispered, “he does.”

• • • • •

_I can’t thank you enough. Know that I look forward to getting to see you again. I know you always used to squirm and complain about it, but, Joey Drew— there isn’t a force on this earth that will keep me from giving you a great big hug when I arrive._

_You deserve it._

_Thank you, my friend,_

_Henry_

• • • • •

It continued for a while; once a week or so, Bendy would either receive a message from Henry or mail off a letter of his own. 

Henry inadvertently told them so much about the world they were missing, and it took a lot of creativity on the entire studio’s part to keep Joey’s side of the correspondence from sounding like anything other than the man Bendy was pretending to be. 

Bendy found himself thinking about Henry a lot. About what his reaction would be when he found out Joey was dead— that he had truly quit the studio ages ago. He wondered if Henry would be scared of them, or if he would hate them, or if he would try to kill them. He wondered if Henry would be like Joey in that regard: terrified and disgusted of what they were.

He wondered if Henry would struggle— weakly, no doubt, considering his age— as Bendy dragged him through the hallways to the room where he’d be sacrificed. If he would shout horrible things, if he would cry, if he would pound his small, human fists against Bendy’s chest. If he would just sit there and take it silently, knowing he had no way out, that his time had come. 

Bendy wasn’t sure which potential situation he dreaded more. 

• • • • •

**Henry!**

**I have wonderful news! My project is almost complete, and I do so hope you’ll be able to see it soon. While our time speaking like this has been wonderful, I’m incredibly eager to see you again, face to face. It has been far, far too long, my friend.**

**You mentioned in your last letter that your garden had finally yielded fruit. Have you had the chance to try any yet?**

**Would you believe me if I said I recently tried some of that old bacon soup— do you remember how many cans we had simply laying around?— and that, once it’s been heated up, it isn’t too bad? I probably wouldn’t believe myself.**

**Your best pal,**

**Joey**

• • • • •

A week passed, and there was no letter from Henry. 

Day after day dragged by, Bendy impatiently awaiting a response. He told himself he was so eager because he had to make sure Henry wasn’t going to die before they could use him for the ritual— all the while firmly ignoring the part of his mind that said he was genuinely worried for the man who’d become his friend over the course of the past two and a half months.

Henry wasn’t allowed to be his friend; friends didn’t sacrifice friends after all, so Bendy was just keeping tabs on him, that’s it.

The whole studio buzzed with worry— because they needed Henry’s heart, not because they’d all grown to like the man from hearing about him in the letters, okay?— by the time week three approached. Bendy decided that if there was nothing within a few days, he’d send another to Henry, asking if everything was all right. 

It’s what a concerned friend would do, and Bendy was pretending— and _only_ pretending, got it?— to be a friend. 

There was mail the next morning. 

• • • • •

_Joey,_

_I’m sorry about the wait._ ~~_I was trying to make_~~ _I was sick, pretty badly too._

 ~~ _Please tell me_~~ _If I missed anything exciting during my absence, feel free to bunch everything together into a longer letter than normal._

 ~~ _You wanted_~~ _My doctor says I need to rest. The earliest I’ll be able to visit won’t be for another month._ ~~_Do you know_~~ _It’s probably lucky that I wasn’t there when it hit me._

 _I ~~’m scar~~_ _I’m sorry for my shaky penmanship. I suppose I’m not quite over the illness yet. Perhaps some time sitting in my garden will help— though no weeding for me._

 _My garden is overflowing._ ~~_Do you even_~~ _I am, quite literally, enjoying the fruits of my labor._

 _I’ve grown tired, simply by writing this._ ~~_My heart hurts_~~

~~_I wish I could_~~ _Until next time,_

_Henry_

• • • • •

“Well?” Alice asked, everyone leaning forward in their seats as Bendy finished silently rereading the letter for the third time.

“He says he was sick, and that he’s only just barely recovered.” Bendy wiped the ink from his face and scanned it again. 

“But? You’re acting like something’s wrong.”

Bendy sighed. “There’s a couple’a crossed out words, which he’s never done before. I guess he was worse off then he made himself out to be.”

Everyone left soon after that, except for Buddy. The little toon tilted his head back to stare up at Bendy, ink covering his face too. 

After waiting for a moment but getting nothing from him, Bendy sighed again. “Is there something you wanted?”

Very softly, Buddy said, “You’re worried.”

Bendy looked at the paper again, at the half-formed thoughts and weakly trembling words. “I shouldn’t be,” he finally said. 

Buddy raised an eyebrow at him, and Bendy found himself jealous of the movement even as he winced. Since Buddy was quiet more often than not, it was easy to forget that he was one of the toons with the most intact mind, for all that he wasn’t alone up there. 

“I shouldn’t be,” Bendy repeated, “but I am. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Henry was just supposed to show up so we could finish the ritual, he wasn’t supposed to become someone I—” his voice grew louder as he spoke before dropping to a whisper— “someone I care about.” 

It was an ugly admission, considering what he planned to do to Henry once the man eventually arrived.

“You don’t want to kill him,” Buddy said. It was the one thing Bendy hadn’t allowed himself to think yet.

He slowly fell to his knees in front of Buddy. Looking down at his mismatched hands— only a Creator’s heart away from being perfect— he repeated the truth that he’d tried so hard to bury in his ink-black heart: “I don’t want to kill him.”

Buddy shrugged at him, his little tail twining through the air. “Then don’t,” he said before leaving Bendy alone in the room. 

_Then don’t._

“But I have to,” Bendy whispered. “Don’t I?”

He didn’t get an answer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second and final chapter is written and will be posted on Sunday.
> 
> Let me know what you think! Does it hurt yet?


	2. The Aftermath of Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “When he comes, stay out of sight. Just— get me, and I’ll take care of him, okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I make you cry, or at least tear up a bit.

They went back to their usual schedule with sending the letters, and Bendy hated how relieved he felt when Henry didn’t have trouble writing after that one time. 

It wasn’t long after everything was normal again that the studio’s occupants gathered together to go over what they hoped would happen soon. 

“It probably won’t be much longer until Henry shows up,” Bendy told them. “He said it’d be about a month after his sickness, and that time’s almost here. When he comes…”

He went quiet, thinking about Henry walking into the abandoned studio, excited to see his friend for the first time in decades— and instead getting a bunch of monstrous ink creatures who planned on sacrificing him.

“Bendy?”

He jerked in place a bit, giving Alice a nod. “When he comes, stay out of sight. Just— get me, and I’ll take care of him, okay?” 

For once, the other toons just nodded silently. Bendy hated the expressions of sadness twisting those with proper faces to twist, and the slumps in everyone’s shoulders, and the way the Projectionist’s light was dimmer than normal, and how Buddy refused to look up from the floor. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But there isn’t another way.”

They nodded again, some of them giving Bendy encouraging— if small— smiles. 

Bendy couldn’t fault them for feeling like that, since he felt at least ten times worse. _He’d_ be the one to kill Henry and remove his heart for the ritual, after all. His own grin hadn’t been at its full size in weeks, it seemed. 

Just as he prepared to continue speaking— about what, he’d later have no idea— movement at the door caught his attention. Believing it to be a Searcher or Amalgamate late to the meeting, he barely glanced up, more out of habit than anything— the most mindless of the toons often didn’t care about technical details like those they talked about here. 

Instead, in that split second, his eyes took in color. 

Doing a double take worthy of any self-respecting toon, Bendy’s entire body locked up at the sight of the human man standing behind the others, a step into the room. 

A bit on the shorter side with a slightly stooped back, obviously older but remarkably healthy looking, gray hair ruffled from either wind or nervous hands, and with bright blue eyes that Bendy could see despite the distance between them, Bendy was positive— beyond any doubt— that he was looking at Henry Ross. 

He wore a chocolate brown sweater over a cream button-up shirt, with a bright red bowtie at his neck. Henry might not have been around by the time Joey made them all with the Ink Machine, but Bendy had vague memories from when he was just a doodle on a page, a character staring up at his Creator. Henry had worn a bowtie back then, too. 

The rest of the toons by then had taken notice of Bendy’s distraction, and as if scripted, they all turned to look over their shoulders as one. 

Even as the room erupted into chaos, Bendy didn’t take his eyes off Henry. The man didn’t so much as flinch as he became the center of attention, though everyone kept their distance. There was yelling and screeching and groaning and the Prophet seemed to be praying over in the corner, but neither Bendy nor Henry took any notice of that. 

Instead, the man’s gaze drifted down to Buddy as the little guy wove around the various flailing limbs until he stopped right at Henry’s feet, head tilted back to look up at him. 

Without a word, Henry knelt down and reached out. The room went silent as a tomb— oof, bad comparison, all things considered— as Henry gently swiped his palm across Buddy’s face. And for the first time, despite numerous attempts made by many other hands, the ink wiped off, revealing Buddy’s eyes. 

Around the typical black, pie-cut pupils was a ring of color— blue. The same blue, Bendy realized, as Henry’s own irises.  

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Buddy?” Henry asked. 

Buddy blinked a few times before his mouth upturned into a shaky but beautifully genuine smile. He nodded, even as he lifted his arms like a child demanding to be held. Henry obliged, scooping the little toon up against his chest, heedless of the ink. 

Squeezing Buddy protectively, he stood, knees creaking audibly. 

“Well,” he said, his gaze drifting across the lot of them. “I think we all have some explaining to do. Starting—” Henry pointed at Bendy— “with you.”

He hefted Buddy onto his hip. It struck Bendy as a move that seemed practiced— perhaps even mastered— and yet, Henry didn’t have any children.

“You were the one writing the letters, weren’t you? Pretending to be Joey.” Henry walked slowly across the room, the other toons parting silently to allow him to pass.

Bendy gulped, but nodded as the human came to a halt with only an arms-length of space between them. His ink grew extra goopy. 

Henry narrowed his eyes. Turning to Buddy, he softly said, “I’m gonna put you down for a second, okay?”

Buddy easily dropped to the floor, his newly revealed eyes not leaving Henry even as Alice tugged him back. 

Looking down at the human, only coming up to the middle of Bendy’s chest, he tried to imagine what Henry would say in the next moment— and he found himself distraught over all the things he came up with. Regardless of the lying, he really had felt Henry was his friend, and the idea that the man would unleash his fury on Bendy caused a whimper to rise in his throat.

It was made all the worse by the knowledge of what Bendy would do to Henry, likely before the day was over. He deserved anything and everything that Henry might throw at him. 

Instead of screaming or shouting, instead of hitting Bendy or threatening worse punishments— like acetone— Henry took that last step separating them, leaned up on his toes, and wrapped his arms around Bendy as high as he could comfortably manage.

Bendy blinked, dark splotches appearing in Henry’s hair as he dripped over him. The other toons appeared to be as bewildered as he himself felt. 

And then, like a lightbulb turning on, understanding filled Bendy, closely followed by unspeakable awe and a fair amount of disbelief.

_I know you always used to squirm and complain about it, but, Joey Drew— there isn’t a force on this earth that will keep me from giving you a great big hug when I arrive._

Henry had promised to give Joey— who he thought had just helped him through the pain of loss— a hug upon his arrival to the studio. And now that Henry knew who actually wrote the letters…

Bendy’s hands slowly lifted until they rested on Henry’s back. 

No one had ever hugged him before. Most of the toons didn’t really know how to go about physical contact like that, and the few that Bendy might’ve been comfortable hugging, he couldn’t— between Boris’s jutting ribs and the negative reaction Alice’s body had when she came into contact with large amounts of ink, neither of his best friends would have been able to indulge him, had the urge been there. 

Henry felt so fragile. Bendy tried to imagine snapping his neck, tried to picture himself pulling his oh-so-human heart out of his cooling body, and immediately squeezed his eyes shut and curled over the man, like he could stop himself if he just tried hard enough. 

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Bendy said, not quite surprised to hear the hiccuping cracks in his voice. “You should’ve stayed away, where you were safe!” 

“I had to know,” Henry whispered. “No matter who it was, I had to know.”

“How did you find out?” Alice asked, stepping forward a bit. “Did we mess up somehow?”

Henry finally pulled away from Bendy, and it took all the self-control Bendy had to actually release him. 

“It wasn’t you. I— I was going through some of my brother’s things, and I came across an old newspaper. Gosh, I wouldn’t have even seen the article if I hadn’t accidentally dropped it. Fell right open to the page with Joey’s obituary.” Henry laughed a little, dragging a hand through his hair. “It took me a long time to send a letter back after that, and when I did, I kept having to cross things out because I didn’t want to let on that I knew.” 

“So you weren’t actually sick?”

He shrugged. “I ended up catchin’ something or other. Old folks like me can’t handle that sort of stress and worry sometimes. I’m better now, though.”

Buddy tripped up to Henry, raising his arms again. Without hesitation, Henry hoisted him up, cradling him close.

The Projectionist pointed at the two and screeched, ending on a lilting note. 

Henry leaned towards Bendy a bit, whispering from the side of his mouth, “Was that a question?”

“He— well, all of us, really— wants to know what all this—” Bendy waved his gloved hand at the picture the human and little toon made— “is about.”

With a sigh that made Henry’s shoulders droop, he asked, “How much do you guys know about Joey’s experiments?”

“Not much,” Alice said, sitting back down. She gestured to Buddy’s empty seat next to her.

Henry nodded his thanks and settled in, Buddy in his lap. The others gathered around him, and Bendy knelt down in front of Henry, smiling at the sense of closeness, of family. His heart clenched; it wouldn’t last.

He’d let them enjoy it until then, though.

“I was still working here when Joey first had the idea to create life with the Ink Machine,” Henry began. “I tried to reason with him once he started bringing things like rituals and sacrifices into it, but he didn’t listen. He claimed it was safe, that nothing could go wrong and no one would get hurt.” He closed his eyes. “Joey decided that the best way to prove that to me, was by using me in one of his rituals.”

The toons gasped. Bendy felt the spike of guilt that had been lodged in his heart for ages now wrench deeper. _They_ were going to use him in a ritual.

“It could’ve went a lot worse than it did,” Henry reassured them, though he still looked haunted by whatever he was seeing in his mind. He jostled Buddy, who giggled. “But this little guy came tumbling out of the Machine. Despite how mad I was at Joey, having an energetic shadow follow me around wasn’t too bad.” 

Henry tickled Buddy’s stomach. Buddy curled up with a happy gasp. “We were rather attached to each other, weren’t we, bud? Especially since…”

His fingers moved up and alighted on Buddy’s forehead. The toon went still and stared at Henry. Henry didn’t finish his thought.

Instead, he continued, “I came to work one day, and Buddy wasn’t there to greet me, which hadn’t ever happened before. I waited, in case he was busy or had gotten distracted by something; by the time lunch had passed and there was still no sign of him, I went to Joey. He… he told me what he’d tried to do the previous night.”

With a gentle touch, Henry traced the outsides of Buddy’s eyes, and when Bendy looked closer, he saw tiny marks, the closest thing to scars a toon could have. 

“And then he told me that when it didn’t work, he killed Buddy.”

The various expressions of horror that appeared on everyone’s faces would’ve been comical, if the situation hadn’t been so serious. 

“I spent the rest of the day searching, trying to find out if it was true. Joey made it seem like he really had, even set up a little scene and everything. I figured he was telling the truth, so that night, I packed my things and never came back. It wasn’t until three years had passed that Joey sent me a letter, explaining that he’d faked Buddy’s death, but that he really hadn’t seen him since that day.” 

Henry fiddled with Buddy’s mitten-hands. “I didn’t respond,” he said in a small voice. “And it tore me up that I didn’t; I didn’t even feel like I could months later. So when I got the one you sent not too long ago now… I made sure I did.”

Looking around at all of them, he told them, “If I had known he would do this, that any of this would happen, I would’ve come back.”

He passed a reluctant Buddy over to Alice before facing Bendy. With Henry in the chair and Bendy sitting on the floor with his legs folded beneath him, they were almost of a height. “You need me for something, don’t you? That’s why you wanted me to come here.”

Unable to speak, Bendy merely nodded. 

Henry didn’t flinch as he asked, “Are you going to kill me?”

Bendy bowed his head.

“Will it help you?”

“Yes,” Bendy whispered, ignoring the ink running down his face. 

In silence, he waited. Would Henry run, making Bendy chase him down? 

“What are we waiting for then? I’m not getting any younger, after all.” 

Bendy raised his head, eyes wide. Henry gazed back at him, mouth turned up in a small, sad smile. 

“But… _why?_ ” he asked the man. It wasn’t that Henry was even giving up; it was like, like he _wanted_ to do it. For them?

“Because none of you seem like you especially want me dead,” Henry said. “If you still plan on using me, then I assume it has to be me specifically.”

Repeating the words from the ritual book, Bendy quietly told him, “We need the heart of one of our Creators.” 

“And I’m giving mine to you. You’re suffering, I can see it— and if the only thing I can do about it is to go quietly and offer you whatever forgiveness you need, then I will.”

“We don’t want to,” Bendy said in a rush, leaning up onto his knees, desperate for Henry to know and understand that. “If there was anyone else we could use, anything else we could do— we would! Henry, please— you— we don’t—”

Reaching out, Henry gently took hold of Bendy’s head, instantly silencing his frantic rambling. “I know,” he shushed him. “It’s okay.”

“It’s _not._ ”

“Then it will be someday. You’ll forget about me soon enough. Now—” he gave Bendy a stern look— “you’re going to have to help me up. My joints just aren’t what they used to be.”

Without another word, Bendy stood and carefully pulled Henry to his own two feet. The other toons, sniffling and wearing expressions of heartbreak, led the way out of the room and through the twisting hallways, to where the sacrifice needed to take place. 

Bendy stayed next to Henry every step of the too-short journey, his massive hand engulfing the man’s back. If these were his final moments, Bendy would do everything he could to give Henry the comfort he deserved. 

They were the last ones to enter, and Henry paused a moment to take in the sight of so many toons— every absent Searcher and Amalgamate having been called upon on the way— as the ritual said that only those in the room itself would fall under its effects. 

On the floor, perfectly centered between all four walls, was a pentagram. Bendy guided Henry to stand inside it, so they were facing each other. His hand slid up Henry’s back to loosely encircle his neck. 

He’d broken so many spines in the past years, working towards the completion of this ritual. He knew how best to do it without causing his sacrificial victim any pain. And with hands as large as his— even mismatched— it was so very easy. 

Bendy stared down into those bright blue eyes, hardly aware that his breathing was growing faster and rougher. His entire body shook. His vision tunneled.

Warm, human fingers wrapped around his wrist, though they couldn’t quite completely encircle it. 

“It’s okay,” Henry said. “I told you— I’m giving you my heart.” 

A wave of terrifying calm washed over Bendy, and he nodded slowly. All he had to do was squeeze and twist just the right way, and it’d be over. His arms tensed and Henry took his last breath—

“Bendy, wait!”

They both whipped their heads towards Alice, who was pointing at their feet. 

Bendy looked down and gasped, reeling backwards. The pentagram was glowing. 

But the pentagram only glowed _after_ the sacrifice.

Glancing around, though, he watched as the Searchers twisted and reformed into the characters they’d been intended to be, of many shapes and sizes; the Amalgamates separated, becoming whole on their own; the Butcher gang members— some of the most deformed toons among them, in terms of messed up physical aspects— blinked their restored eyes and moved their restored limbs and smiled with their restored mouths. 

The Projectionist and Prophet’s ink melted off their bodies, revealing the studio’s only two human characters. Grinning uncontrollably, each finally having a face to do so, they simultaneously pulled each other into a hug, slapping backs with normal hands and pretending like they weren’t crying. 

Alice laughed and spun in a circle, looking like a proper toon instead of some strange half-and-half. Boris’s ribs folded back into place, his ink closing over it, blemish free.

“We’re saved,” he cried, grabbing Alice’s hands and spinning her around and around. They were the first words he’d ever spoken.

It was like a dark cloud had lifted, like the world was already growing a little bit brighter. It was beautiful.

“I don’t understand.”

Bendy turned back to Henry, who was wiping tears from his eyes and grinning like he was the happiest he’d ever been. 

“How did it work?” he asked. “You didn’t take my heart.” 

He didn’t answer right away, and when he did, he spoke each word slowly and carefully with the reverence each deserved: “I suppose I didn’t need to,” Bendy said, “because you gave it to me.”

At that moment, he realized he was eye-level with Henry, and only a few seconds later, he was a foot shorter. By the time he looked down, he only came up to Henry’s waist, and— his hands matched. They were different hands, different from the ones that had killed so many people.

They didn’t belong to a monster. 

“Bendy!” 

He turned at the sound of his name, immediately getting crushed up between Alice and Boris. They laughed and babbled and cried together.

In the midst of their celebration, Bendy heard a choked whimper from behind him. He turned, freezing with wide eyes.

Henry— collapsed to his knees in the center of the pentagram— was hunched over, one hand threaded through his hair, the other curling against the base of his throat. 

Bendy watched, with Alice and Boris as equally transfixed over his shoulders, as a rich brown color swept through Henry’s hair like a wave, chasing away the aged gray. 

“What’s happening to me?” he asked, groaning. His voice wasn’t as rough as it had been before. 

He raised his face to them, and all three gasped. The wrinkles from around Henry’s eyes and mouth and along his cheeks and forehead— they were all gone. When he straightened, his back didn’t have the barely noticeable stoop— though now that it was missing as well, they could very much see the difference. Henry’s shoulders were the slightest bit broader, too, youthful. The knobs on his knuckles had vanished, leaving behind smooth, tan skin. 

Reciting the words he knew by heart, Bendy said, “Upon the ritual’s completion, the magick will return every living being in the room to a state of continued perfection.”

“ _Every_ being? And— wait, _perfection?_ ” Henry— looking so very different and yet just the same; he was still _Henry_ , after all— glanced down at his hands. His eyes, not quite as squinty, widened. 

Without answering his question— and really, Henry would understand as soon as he got a good look in a mirror— Bendy stepped closer. “So, uh, how are you feeling?” 

“Like my insides have just been rearranged.” 

“And how were your insides before today?”

Henry frowned. “What sort of question is—” He cut himself off, realization making his jaw drop. He poked at his abdomen. “I had a kidney removed when I was in my thirties. Are you— are you saying that _my_ _kidney just grew back?_ ”

“What I’m sayin’ is that a perfectly on-model human has two kidneys, right?” 

His gaze switched back and forth between the three toons in front of him and his smooth, barely calloused hands. Finally, Henry shook his head, “Yeah, no, can we go back to the _continued perfection_ part, because that—“ He laughed, the sound of it strained and slightly hysterical. 

Bendy grabbed Henry’s wrists, pulling his trembling hands away from each other. “Why aren’t you happy? You’re alive, and it sure doesn’t look like that’ll change any time soon.”

Henry stared at him, his eyes sadder than they’d been before. “For the same reason I kept answering the letters after I found out they couldn’t have been from Joey. For the same reason I didn’t mind dying for you guys. I’m alone, and I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“You have us!” Somehow having snuck up on them, Buddy pressed up against Henry’s side until he picked the little toon up. 

“Wait, you don’t look any different,” Henry said, touching the scars around Buddy’s eyes. 

He shrugged in his Creator’s arms. “Didn’t wanna be different.”

“He’s right, though! You have us— I mean, if you want us,” Bendy offered, twisting the toe of his boot into the floorboards. 

A smile inched across Henry’s face, big and genuine and _happy_. His eyes crinkled in their corners and his nose scrunched up a bit. 

“What are you all just standing there for?” he asked, opening his arms. 

Beaming— perfectly on-model— Bendy threw himself forward, closely followed by Alice and Boris. It took barely a moment after that for the rest of the toons in the room to realize what was going on, and they immediately joined the group hug even if they didn’t know what it was for. 

“So that’s it then?” Henry asked, his voice muffled from being buried under so many joyous bodies. He wiggled his face out from Boris’s shoulder and tucked his chin against his chest, joining Buddy and Bendy in the little protective cave he’d made with his arms. “What about—”

“Shh!” Bendy said, smooshing his index finger against Henry’s lips. “Don’t ruin the moment! We’ll figure out all the boring, technical bits later. But you’re ours now, and we’re yours, so just— keep hugging.”

Buddy nodded enthusiastically. Henry had called him energetic, and for the first time— without the influence of coffee, that is— Bendy saw a hint of that liveliness in him.

Henry pretended to think about it for a moment— Bendy could tell he didn’t really mean it, because he was trying not to laugh— before nodding and pulling the two toons even closer to him. “That’s fair enough, I suppose. Hugging it is, then.”

It was more than Bendy could’ve ever asked for. The most he’d expected out of the ritual was for the pain of corruption to stop, for himself and the others. But instead of just another dead body on their hands, they had Henry now, too. 

Henry, who hadn’t been afraid of them, who had been willing to die for them, who held Bendy like he’d fight anyone who tried to take him away. 

Maybe that’s what they’d needed all along; not just someone who would give up and wait for death, but someone who would willingly walk towards it for them. Someone who wouldn’t run at the first sight of their deformities—like Joey had— but someone who would sit in their midst without a moment of hesitation. Someone who would hold them close, who would stay, who might even love them. 

Someone who’d look at the monster Bendy had been and say, _it’s okay, I’m giving you my heart, so you don’t have to take it yourself_. 

Someone with a heart like Henry’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, did anyone tear up? Either in sadness or happiness? To get the ball rolling, I’ll freely admit that I got a little misty-eyed when I wrote the scene where Henry asks if Bendy’s going to kill him. 
> 
> You guys have no idea how badly I wanted to reassure all the wonderful commenters from the first chapter that I’m a ‘happy endings’ kinda gal, no matter how clichéd it can get, but I refused to spoil anything! Also! That _next chapter_ you see is Henry’s uncensored letter (from when he was ‘sick’) and an extended author’s note.
> 
> I decided this was a nice place to end things, but if you guys think that it needs a little epilogue or something, I might see what I can do. ;)


	3. Henry's Letter (not a chapter)

If Henry hadn't gone crossing things out and wrote what was really on his mind:

 

_Joey,_

_I’m sorry about the wait. I was trying to make up my mind about replying, because, Joey. I found something. A newspaper. It said… it said Joey Drew died more than twenty years ago. Who are you? Why did you contact me? Why are you lying?_

_Please tell me who you are._

_You wanted me to come to the studio. Why? What do you want from me? Do you know who I am? Is this all a coincidence?_

_I’m scared. You’ve scared me. My hand trembles as I write this because you’ve scared me. Is that what you wanted? To scare a lonely old man?_

_My garden is overflowing. Do you even care? Or was it all an act?_

_I’ve grown tired, simply by writing this. My heart hurts, and it is your fault, whoever you are._

_I wish I could tell you to never contact me again, but I am— as I said— old and lonely,_

_Henry_

I also wanted to take this opportunity to explain why I went with the Everybody Lives and Everything’s Great and Wonderful route. While tragic endings are just as legitimate as clichéd happy ones, I’ve always leaned towards the happy ending as a favorite. Part of that is because (and again, this is just my personal opinion) real life hardcore sucks sometimes, and fanfiction is a great way to escape it. 

And that means that I come looking for things that will make me happy. Tears and feels are all well and good— in fact, as an author, I very much appreciate being told that I was able to extract such an emotional reaction out of my readers— but I always prefer my angst to be rounded off with fluff. Otherwise, it can feel empty, or leave me feeling worse than before. 

Real life doesn’t work that way for the most part, but heck! If I wanted an accurate depiction of crappy real life, I wouldn’t be searching for stories to remove me from it for a while.

Would it have been interesting and heart-wrenching and maybe even thought-provoking for me to take this story in the direction I made it seem like it was going, like Bendy really was going to sacrifice Henry? Yes. And did I very much enjoy dragging these amazing characters through some Pain? Also yes. But I didn’t want to leave it that way for them. 

Henry dying, while “necessary” as far as the toons were concerned, would ultimately hurt them in ways that I simply didn’t want to. Bendy would spend the rest of his physically perfect eternity stuck with the memory of murdering a man that was his friend and then ripping his heart out from his body. I wouldn’t even know where to start resolving that, if it could even be resolved. And leaving things _unresolved_ seemed unfair, not only to the characters and myself, but to you guys as well. 

Was the  _Henry telling them that they could have his heart and the words being enough for the ritual_ solution clichéd? I’m sure it was. But I hope it also made you guys feel light and fluffy on the inside. I’ve never played around in a fandom like this before, and I’m enjoying every minute of it; I adore these characters, and while I’m more than happy to drag them through some angst, I want them to come out the other side Okay. More often than not, you can expect a solid happy ending from me, and on the rare occasions where that isn’t true, it’ll probably end up in the tags (like with Before and After; I used the tag Bittersweet Ending) or as warnings in the end notes to avoid potential spoilers. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Catching Up, Chowing Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13494854) by [MsFaust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsFaust/pseuds/MsFaust)




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